The Completely Unnecessary and Very Short Follow-up
by tepid sponge bath
Summary: to The Seduction of John S. Willoughby which concerns proving points involving locks and the futility of certain cunning precautions


**Disclaimer: **I own no part of the BBC's _Sherlock_, and I make absolutely no monetary profit from this.

**The Seduction of John S. Willoughby: The Completely Unnecessary and Incredibly Short Follow-up**

_There is an almost military neatness to the room._

_Chest of drawers._

_Line of bottles on the chest of drawers, the bare minimum needed for a man's grooming with the exception of the hand cream (only slightly used, probably a gift from someone at the surgery)._

_Books _not _arranged alphabetically or by subject, but carefully put away on shelves all the same._

_Probably the same sort of order inside the closet (but won't open that, wouldn't want to be too intrusive)._

_The untidy things, then._

_Laptop hastily shoved onto bedside table._

_A sock that didn't quite make it to the hamper of dirty laundry._

_The occasional soft sound John Watson makes in his sleep._

_And the jumper thrown over the back of the chair in front of the door._

_The chair though…_

_Not positioned to actually block the door, but as a sort of surprise impediment for someone entering the room. (Also possibly will be something of a nasty surprise for John if he doesn't remember it when he wakes up.)_

_The door is locked. Aside from the chair, there are no other unusual precautions. _

_A smile, and a look over his shoulder._

_The back window hadn't just been unlatched when he'd gotten there, it had been open – just a crack to let the air in, but enough for him to get his fingers in and work it upwards. _

_The fire escape at the back of the building had been invaluable as well. _

Some things have a funny way of permeating a person's sleep. For instance, John's alarm clock regularly featured in the last few seconds of his dreams. Sounds from the street did that too sometimes: cars and people arguing and, rather horribly, music from other people's speakers. John had also learned that you could dream smells from that awful morning when Sherlock's experiment with beta-mercaptoethanol hadn't exactly gone according to plan. (Actually, it hadn't gone according to plan _at all_, and the flat had smelled like the more ominous kind of hair salon for a month.)

It hadn't, however, occurred to him that you could feel a stare while you slept. But that was what woke him up now, a full fifteen minutes before his alarm was set to go off: the vaguely uncomfortable and very distinct sensation of being under intense, intelligent scrutiny.

Groggily and much too aware of having been deprived of a little bit more sleep, he pushed the button on his clock that would stop it from screaming at him to wake up in a quarter of an hour. He stretched, blinked a few times, saw the ceiling, the wall, the window that opened onto the fire escape, and two bare feet resting on his bed at about the level of his knees.

He blinked some more. The feet were attached to ridiculously long pajama-ed legs, and those in turn were attached to the rest of Sherlock Holmes who was ensconced in the very chair that John had cunningly set up to make things difficult in case the consulting detective tried anything funny. Well, at least John thought he'd been cunning at the time.

The man wasn't staring now, apparently absorbed in whatever was on the screen of his Blackberry, but John thought he knew him well enough to know a ruse when he saw one. He didn't exactly clutch his blanket to his chest, but it was a near thing.

"Sherlock!"

"Just proving a point," said his flatmate, putting his phone in the pocket of his dressing gown. "Mrs. Hudson ought to have breakfast ready by now, you'll have time to eat before you leave for work." And he smiled so winningly that it was nearly impossible to stay mad at him. Or, rather, nearly impossible to _get_ mad at him, since John hadn't quite worked his way past shocked and into angry yet. "Good morning."

**Note: **And I acknowledge that in addition to being completely unnecessary and very short, this one-shot might also be a tad frustrating. Apologies! _But, _though I can't quite promise anything definite since I've a lot of non-fandom writing on my plate at the moment, I think I can see my way to a proper sequel to _Seduction_, possibly built along the lines of _The Illustrious Client_. A late merry Christmas, and a happy New Year to you all!


End file.
